OneVision, an early player, has meantime moved upmarket and largely specialises on file fixing in general for newspapers, publishers and other high volume file receivers. Markzware’s Flightcheck has the additional advantage of being able to check native layout files before they are turned into PDFs. Enfocus’ various PitStop preflighters and callas’ pdfToolbox are leading players here. Although Adobe supplies a good preflighter in its own Acrobat Pro (actually based on callas’ technology) that can fix some common problems automatically, this hasn’t removed the need for the more wide-ranging features in the third party solutions. GWG is likely to adopt the newish PDF/X-4 in future, which unlike the CMYK-only PDF/X-1a that’s popular in the UK, also supports live transparency and colour management of mixed colour models. Enfocus and callas support these specifications and can convert existing PDFs to meet their requirements. The Ghent Workgroup (GWG) is a multi-vendor development committee that has come up with a set of variations on PDF/X for specific job types, such as magazines, newspapers, packaging etc. In particular QuarkXPress and Adobe InDesign, the two principle layout programs in professional design for print, adopted PDF/X export features which after initial snags a few versions back, are now reliable and easy to use. The introduction of PDF/X, which imposes strict rules on what can and cannot be included in a print-destined document, helped a lot. Preflighting programs have also proved invaluable for detecting problems before they get to the expensive print stage, and in many cases they can fix common problems automatically, almost without the creator being aware of them. Being such an allencompassing format it still allowed problems to slip through the net, though many of the technical issues have been solved now, either by Adobe’s regular upgrades or by users themselves as they built up experience of the do’s and don’ts. It was introduced as a more reliable way of sending standardised files than either native document files or the original PostScript format. PDF has been the dominant file exchange format for documents in professional printing for more than a decade. February 2011 Preflight’s progress The recent introduction of Adobe Acrobat X means it’s a good time to examine the latest developments in the main PDF preflight programs.Japanese trim and bleed marks for example look completely different than European or US marks. Lastly but perhaps not important in your application, different regions can actually work with different types of marks. Watch out however that you're not confused by bad applications which don't place marks with absolute accuracy. You're not looking for a single mark - you're looking for a set of them and this typically helps with recognition a lot. These marks normally are mirrored symmetrically. You're almost guaranteed of this because these marks need to show up on every printed separation (sorry for the technical printing terms if you're not familiar with them). Either CMYK with the color set to 100%, 100%, 100%, 100% or - more commonly - a special spot color called "All". These marks are usually drawn in specific colours. They are short and straight (horizontal or vertical). Trim and bleed marks are usually simple lines (though thin rectangles are sometimes used as well). The strategies center around a number of facts: There is no general answer that works for ALL PDF files, however there are a few useful strategies that are implemented by existing solutions for graphics arts such as callas pdfToolbox (watch it, I'm associated with this product) or PitStop.
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